Friday, December 17, 2004

Immediately below, Glen comments that (presumed) overreactions to the attacks of September 11, 2001, lead him to mutter, "The terrorists have won." While I share his frustration, I tend to react differently.

I take it that terrorists aim at far more than simply inconveniencing U.S. citizens or restricting our liberties. They appear to want to recreate the Caliphate, albeit under a form of Islam far more restrictive than was generally practiced in that far-flung empire. So the terrorists do not win just because, for instance, we cannot take nail clippers onto aircraft. Indeed, given their wildly unrealistic goals, Islamofascist terrorists can not win.

Nonetheless, we can lose. We have lost a great deal of time and (its equivalent) money in wasteful overreactions to terrorism. Still worse, we may lose many of our traditional liberties. Those represent woeful losses, which we should try to avoid or at least cure. But they do not mean that the terrorists have won. Indeed, I don't even give those ignorant thugs credit for most of our losses. Rather, I blame the irrationality and opportunism of our own politicians and bureaucrats.

You smart guys are usually on the same page but it's more interesting when there is an area of disagreement. You are probably too young to remember but in the late seventies a segment of the 60 Minutes news program consisted of a debate between Shana Alexander and James Kilpatrick. I think the Andy Rooney silliness eventually replaced it. I think you two should have a "debate" say once a month on a current issue similar to the new Posner-Becker blog that Glen mentioned to us or even on matters of economic or political philosophy. If you need additional suggestions for topics, I'm sure your readers will email some good ones to you. Whether you disagree or not isn't really all that important because you both often see the same issue from quite different angles. Please think about it for the coming year.

Troy -- for an explanation of the blog's title, click on "Agora-what?" in the upper right-hand corner of the page.

Anon -- I agree that debates between me and Tom would be interesting, assuming we could find enough things to disagree about. (Posner and Becker don't actually seem to disagree much.) As it happens, I don't really disagree with Tom on this particular issue. I concede that a loss for us does not necessarily constitute a win for the terrorists. And I agree that our overreactions are a big part of the problem -- indeed, that was my real point in the post Tom was responding to.

Tom -- I would distinguish between "can not" and "cannot." The former means "is able not to," while the latter means "is unable to."

Glen, I used "can not" for emphasis (hence also my use of italics). I guess I've always equated "can not" and "cannot" but I also guess that I can see why you distinguish the two. I suppose you would put "can't" in the first camp. Let me google the question. . . .

Hmm. I find mixed authorities. See, e.g, http://www.bartleby.com/68/4/1104.html, which essentially equating the three but adding both that "can not" may be used to place the emphasis on the "not" (your usage) or for emphasis (mine). See also, http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutspelling/cannot. But see, http://www.grammarmudge.cityslide.com/board/board_topic/1268580/58941.htm, which forcefully leans your way.

In defense of your distinction, "can not" adds unwelcome ambiguity. Counterpoint: the same rule of usage would presumably apply to "are not," "am not," "shall not," and so forth, which seems quite contrary to normal usage. Counter-counterpoint: But those other contractable phrases do not offer anything like "cannot" as an alternative; that option makes "can't" a contraction of "cannot" and allows "can not" to operate differently from other "(verb) not" pairings.

I conclude that I can edit "can not" to "cannot" or "can't" or I can not edit "can not to "cannot" or "can't"; from a descriptivist point of view, all conform to the rules of English syntax and the context makes the semantics sufficiently clear.

This proves my point about the need for more Agoraphilia debates. If a litte point of grammar can quickly turn into a firestorm, what will happen when the subject matter becomes more weighty? In general, people should get over the need to agree. I hate it when people agree so as to not create waves or to conform to the status quo or to feel accepted by the group. Agreeing for pure psychological reasons can an instance of the Abilene Paradox or Groupthink. Those were the two most important concepts that I learned in my management class years ago. Resolve: From a libertarian perspective, when is conformity a good or bad thing?

I think emphasizing "can not" the way Tom did removed any ambiguity from his usage. I think it would have been an acceptable usage anyway, but italicizing the words together served to group them such as to make the pair of words equivalent to "can't" or "cannot" to every alert reader.

I agree that the italics and context clarified Tom's intended meaning. My point was just that "cannot" would have made the clarification unnecessary, since "cannot" isn't subject to the "able not to" reading. In grading student papers, I have run into ambiguous cases on many occasions. Stylistically, I think it's better to choose less ambiguous locutions (unless, of course, ambiguity is your intent).

Tom -- With respect to "are not," "am not," "shall not," etc., I would also add that the ambiguity problem in these cases is either less severe or nonexistent. I don't see much difference between "I am not-going" and "I am-not going." It doesn't really matter which word we attach the "not" to. But in the case of "can," it does matter.

I agree with Glen that avoiding ambiguity when it can be done easily and without countervailing costs is good.

But, I think Tom's separating the words with a space had stylistic value. In my mind's ear, I hear "Islamofascist terrorists can not win." differently from "Islamofascist terrorists cannot win." I think the space between the words adds measured, deliberate, emphasis (think of "This will not stand!" vs. "This won't stand!") and that outweighs, in this case, the value of avoiding the negligible possibility of ambiguity.

I also have absolutely no problem with Glen pedantically pointing out the usage issue. I do similar things quite often, so it must be ok. :-)